Relief

Time had no meaning in this place of blood and pain. Seconds had bled into minutes and hours, just like the injured bled into the gauze that was steadily running out. Angela had worked on too many patients, far more than even she would ever be able to remember, as the night settled around them. Her hands were never empty for more than the scant moments it took to move from person to person. Exhaustion dragged at her – at everyone in this waking nightmare – but she forced the feeling away; she could be tired later, once there was time.

She had just knelt on the ground beside her next patient – most had been settled as comfortably as possible on whatever cleared ground there was – when her communicator lit up. There were several people who would call Angela, even at – she glanced at the watch on her wrist – slightly past nine in the evening while she was in the middle of triage. Perhaps it was Gloria, providing a status update, or one of her friends, to chide her for still working on so little sleep. Maybe it was one of the few staff members that were still awake after seventeen hours, looking for her advice.

Because there was no telling who was calling or why, because it was the responsibility she had accepted, she was forced to pause and fish the object out.

"Dr. Ziegler." Her normally cool opener was tainted by distraction; nearly all her attention was on the bleeding man before her. Angela wedged the communicator between her head and shoulder, freeing her hands to open a suture kit. It was unfortunate that both her staff and the healing stream were recharging, but even they had their limits. Instead, she would be forced to pull his leg back together by hand.

"Hello!" The booming German voice, concentrated through the communicator and straight into her ear, made her jump and nearly dislodged the device. Angela was grateful she had not yet started stitching. She took a breath and continued prepping her tools.

"Lieutenant–"

"Reinhardt, doctor, Reinhardt!" He insisted once more. How he remained so exuberant even after so many hours was beyond her.

"Reinhardt." His name was more clipped than she had intended, but she had no patience for a social call. There were dying people all around her. "How can I help you?" Everything was ready; Angela glanced at the man, who was currently unconscious, and then the aide – Rodrigo – who would help restrain him should he wake while she worked.

Rodrigo – just like many of the volunteers in the camp – had no medical experience before this night, but he had a strong stomach and a willingness to help. He had followed her through the rows since his last doctor had gone to rest, ensuring she had whatever supplies she needed and helping to support or restrain patients as necessary. Each of the medical personnel had such help, along with the volunteers that ran through the rows with water or knelt to comfort the injured. Those that couldn't bear working with the injured were helping to erect the tents that would provide shelter and more sterile work environments.

"It has been many hours, doctor." Angela had expected this, but she had not expected the undercurrent of uncertainty in the Lieutenant's voice. Then again, she had very forcibly established herself as his superior on the ground out here; perhaps he was unsure of how to voice the recommendation for her to rest. She ignored his discomfort – it would only be awkward if they made it so.

"It has." She had anchored the thread and was gently pulling the flesh into place. After each deft tug, she swept her eyes over the man for any sign that he was going to wake or struggle. "I know Commander Reyes told you to watch out for me." There was no time for beating around the bush, so she cut straight to the heart of it. "Things are slowing here. I should be able to rest soon."

That was an unfortunate truth. As night had fallen, fewer injured stumbled into their midst. No one wanted to dig or climb in unstable ruins when they could hardly see, after all. However, there were still countless injured to deal with – some, with less urgent wounds, had waited hours for tending. There would be plenty to treat through the night, even if no one else was found until dawn.

"Good, good!" The uncertainty was gone, replaced by his enthusiasm. "You will need to be well rested for tomorrow." It was obvious that Gabriel hadn't explained exactly how stubborn she was to the man – but then again, there hadn't been much time for anything of the sort, had there? Her use of 'should' allowed her to work however long she needed without lying; 'soon' was, for her, somewhere in the nebulous future that could be hours away. None of their superiors would have missed it, but he accepted her assurance at face value.

"I appreciate your concern." Her stitching was nearly finished; fortunately, the man had remained unconscious during the procedure. That wasn't a common occurrence, and she was grateful for it. "You need to get some rest, too." Angela knew she was being hypocritical, but she also didn't care. Her job was to make sure those around her were well cared for; only once that was complete could she turn her attention to herself. She was a doctor – she knew the importance of food and sleep – and she would get both things before too long. Angela could feel the need hovering over her, waiting to pounce; it would have to come within the next few hours unless she wanted to collapse where she stood.

"I will." The man promised. She let the communicator drop to the ground as they disconnected; she would collect it before she left. Angela tied off the end of the stitches and turned to find gauze.

It wasn't any sort of pride that kept her in the rows. Angela was not operating under any belief that if she weren't there, everything would crash and burn. It wasn't her tunnel vision that trapped her here, either. Unlike her long evenings in the basement, she was extremely aware of how late it was getting and how long she had been awake.

The grim reality was that the second wave of relief had yet to arrive – which meant there was no one to take her place should she leave. She knew that it hadn't even been a full day yet, but they desperately needed the personnel and supplies that the wave would bring. The first wave – the emergency wave, where things were forgotten in the haste to act and people were haphazardly thrown at the problem – was crashing after being pushed for so long.

Many of the medical personnel had gone to seek rest, leaving them shorthanded as the sun went down. There were plenty of volunteers to do the menial tasks – carting water around, passing messages, and the like – but the hands necessary to fix people were slowly weaning away. They were still human, after all. Now it was a choice between working with sleep deprivation or losing a set of hands that may be sorely needed during these critical hours.

What little help that had trickled in throughout the day after the first, major response, was not enough to sustain them. They needed the second wave, the next major influx of supplies and personnel. Between the two waves and the hospitals already present, they would be able to at least form a rotation to ensure they weren't short staffed as they were now.

Angela scooped up her communicator and rose, sweeping her eyes across the wounded and dying. Among the chaos, she could only spot a handful of people who might be able to put the injured back together before it was too late. They were all that stood between life and death – and they were faltering.

This first, critical night would be the hardest. Angela was desperately aware of that fact – which was why she was still awake, even though she knew she should be resting for the day ahead. But it would only be this one night. Her hands were steady and her eyes were, somehow, still clear. She would hold out until she could go no longer, just as all those around her would. They had to because there was no one else.

Less than an hour ago, the hospitals had stopped accepting critical patients. They were shuffling staff and patients, trying to free space and supplies for those who needed it most – but until then, they would remain in the rows. Angela and the rest of the drained medical personnel across the camps were all those injured had. Unfortunately, they didn't have the tools necessary to save them; all they could do was try to prolong their lives until the hospitals could take them in once more.

The caffeine from the cold coffee she had hastily tossed back a half-hour ago had barely affected her weariness. Mostly it was the adrenaline, sparked from the terror the hospital closures, and her stubborn will that was keeping her on her feet now. It wasn't her longest day of work by far – she'd pulled double shifts often enough before Overwatch had come into her life – but she had underestimated how physically taxing climbing through the building would be.

Angela was in the middle of treating a woman with electrical burns, blood and unguents on her hands, when her communicator lit up again. The last time it had rung she was in a similar situation and had missed the call while trying to clean her hands and fish it out. This time she had set it at her knee; a quick gesture had Rodrigo accepting the call and helping her wedge it against her ear.

"Dr. Ziegler." Her voice was rough from exhaustion and sharp with annoyance. She no longer was willing to waste her energy to pretend that she was unaffected by this grueling day. While she cared very much about how others perceived her, she doubted anyone would expect her to be cool and collected after such a day.

"Why aren't you resting?" Jack's tone was a mixture of accusation and worry. If she had the energy to spare, she would have sighed or rolled her eyes. He knew exactly why she wasn't sleeping. Instead, she continued to critically inspect the woman's leg for any debris or dead skin that needed to be removed.

"I am working." Angela accepted her forceps from Rodrigo, her attention shifting briefly to her left to rest on the woman's face. "Mi dispiace, ma potrebbe far male1." The woman grimaced but nodded in acknowledgment as Angela turned back to the burns.

"You should be sleeping." He chided as she gently pulled gravel out of the injuries. The woman whimpered, clutching Rodrigo's hand desperately out of pain and fear, but managed to keep from writhing too much. Angela had already finished treating the left leg, so the injured woman was familiar with the process.

"I will." Angela agreed, cleaning the forceps off before pulling the final bits of debris from the leg. "Later. There is too much to do here." She ignored the frustrated noise he made as she smeared ointment on the injury.

"Angela. Eat and go to bed. Now." That was the Commander giving an order to his subordinate, not her friend giving a kind recommendation. It was an authoritative voice that required immediate submission, no questions asked. He hadn't used that tone on her in a long time; the surprise had her hands pausing for the briefest of moments before continuing her task.

She didn't bother to dignify the order with a response, as if a lack of acknowledgment would force him to take it back. The silence dragged out long enough for her to clean her hands and begin winding gauze around the injured leg.

"Angela, I'm serious." Jack finally growled, after it became obvious that she was more than happy to remain silent. Angela finished wrapping the woman's leg. With a reassuring smile to the poor woman, she rose with Rodrigo at her elbow. Normally, she would search for her next patient – but she didn't want to divide her attention from her patient because she was dealing with a grumpy Commander.

"So am I." She hissed in return, carefully stalking towards the end of the row. Her eyes swept over each person, trying to determine which of them she would work on once this call was completed. "I do not have the time to argue with you." Every moment she wasted here was a moment that could have been spent saving a life.

"Then do as I say." He snapped back. Angela knew how much she frustrated him; even after more than a year, she still refused to follow orders simply because they came from someone above her. Many of their arguments, hidden away in the command center where no one could see how hot her fury could burn, had stemmed from her questioning an order or demand. Combat was one thing – she would blindly follow orders until she was dead or back home – but everything else?

"I can't." The words were pure steel as she finally acknowledged his order and summarily dismissed it. Angela wasn't sure she would have done it had they been face to face, even though she knew in this she outranked him. However, nearly a thousand miles and exhaustion made it easy to ignore such reservations.

"What do you mean, 'you can't'?" She winced as he practically shouted at her, knowing she had said the exact wrong thing. Now they were fighting when they didn't have time for such a luxury. Angela heard the murmur of a voice – she couldn't tell if it were Ana or Gabriel – in the background, but she could imagine Jack waving them off as he dealt with this 'problem'.

"When will our second response arrive?" She ignored his question altogether; perhaps a shift in subject would throw him off enough to drop the argument.

"What does that have to do with you going to bed?" No, it did not distract him in the slightest.

"Right now, there is no one to relieve me." Angela tried to keep her voice patient, but even she could hear her irritation. This conversation – which had gone on for too long – should not even be happening. "When the next response arrives, there will be more medical staff. One of them can take my place so I can get some sleep."

There was a brief, considering pause before Jack relayed her question to the other person in the room – which led her to believe it was Ana – and then a strained silence fell between them. Angela was too tired to pursue the frayed strands of the argument. She wasn't surprised that they felt the need to nag her, but that didn't mean she would forgive the misstep. It was one thing to drag her to bed back home when there was no real emergency and another to take up the precious, finite moments that could mean the difference between life and death.

"Our people should be landing in the next hour." It was a force of will that kept her from sagging with relief. If she let herself relax, she would never be able to continue. "From what we've been told from other nations and organizations, there should be a major influx over the next three hours." It seemed like a lifetime, but it was better than nothing.

"Good." Angela turned her attention back to the rows of people. "If that is everything?" Her tone suggested that it should be everything, because as far as she was concerned, this conversation was over.

"Angela–" There was a note of apology in his voice, but that could be saved for when she returned home.

"We can talk about it later." They would, in fact. Just as she respected their orders in combat, they needed to respect her medical decisions, especially in the field. This was her field of expertise and the exact reason they had brought her on in the first place. Just as he was both Jack and Commander Morrison, she was Angela and Dr. Ziegler – and she would remind them of that fact. "I need to go." Angela disconnected before he could try to argue or push the subject. Already she was moving towards her next patient, swiftly drinking the lukewarm coffee that Rodrigo had procured during her call.

Wisely, her communicator remained silent.

Angela wiped her brow before fixing her ponytail – at some point, hair had come loose and was sticking to her cheeks. They had already cleared one building and, because they had ended early enough in the day, they were now steadily working through a second. The four of them were resting in the fourth floor hallway of a nine story apartment building. Angela had been opposed – of course – but their good sense had won out.

She finished the last of her meal bar – an unpleasant tasting thing that had enough calories to get them through the day – and drained her water bottle. Wordlessly, McCree offered her a new one; all of her spares were still in his pack, incapable of fitting amongst her tools. Angela traded the bottles with a small, grateful smile before rising.

"We should get back to it." It wasn't the long rest she knew they all wanted, but they had to finish the building before the sun went down. The building would only get more dangerous the further up they went; they needed all the light they could get. With soft groans of complaint, the three men dutifully rose from their seats amongst the rubble.

Angela was grateful for their presence in the building with her. With multiple people, they could clear each floor faster – and when they came across someone trapped, the four of them had a better chance of freeing them than she had on her own. She was careful to keep an eye on the three men with her, still worried that they might try to stage an accident here in the rubble. There had been no trouble that she had seen – in fact, she hadn't heard or seen anything that seemed to have malicious intent.

She wasn't sure if there was less hostility between the three or if they had just decided that a collapsing building wasn't exactly the best place for their problems. Considering the cowboy hadn't tried to slit their throats in the night nor had he shoved her down a hole in the floors below, she hoped he made some headway towards the hostility.

Maybe she was just being overly hopeful, as she was wont to do.

Up they went, room by room. Sometimes they had to go in through walls – on a few occasions they had to back track so she could be boosted up into a room, and once she'd had to drop down from the floor above – but each room was meticulously searched. As they went, the footing became more and more unstable. McCree had actually yanked back one of the agents – Paulo da Silva, if she was remembering correctly – before the floor had gone out from under him on the seventh floor. Once that floor was cleared, Angela stopped them.

"You will go down to the second floor, where it is safer." The building was unsafe, and she worried that it might come down around their ears. While she might – might – survive such a fall with her Valkyrie suit, they certainly would not. "I will bring any survivors down to you for evacuation." There were only two floors left; it wouldn't take her that long to clear them by herself, even if the floor was unsteady.

She didn't like sending McCree down with them alone, but there was nothing for it. She couldn't risk bringing him higher in the building, so down he had to go. Hopefully, the two agents wouldn't capitalize on her absence – and if they did, she had to hope McCree would be able to survive it or at least get out a call for help.

"You shouldn't go up by yourself." The second agent – Bryant Waters – insisted. The other two men nodded their agreement as Angela placed herself bodily between the agents and the stairs leading to the next floor, wings flaring slightly to block the way.

"And you should not go up at all." Angela retorted. She didn't want anything to happen to these men, especially under her care. "It is either the second floor or out of the building altogether." She would rather send them outside, but she knew they would never listen to that; and so, she had offered the second floor as a compromise. It helped that she was the authority here, which she had firmly established that the day before.

"C'mon," McCree sighed, "daylight's burnin'." The cowboy turned towards the stairs that would take him down. His spurs clinked, an oddly bright sound in the destruction, as he descended. After a long moment, the two agents considering her and realizing there was no point in arguing – it would only waste time and breath – they also made their way downstairs. She waited, listening to their footsteps echo, before reaching up to turn on her mic as she turned to make her way to the eighth floor.

There were only two survivors on the eighth floor; fortunately, she was able to get both out without the help of the agents below. They were safely on the ground and she was on the ninth floor, prowling through the second of six apartments. It, too, was empty; while she was glad there was no one trapped, it was mildly frustrating to have come all this way for nothing.

Angela was leaving the bedroom when the building groaned – much more ominous than all previous sounds thus far – and shook. Between the unsteady flooring and the sudden movement, she was forced to one knee to keep from falling, wings flaring to try and steady herself as she leaned against her staff.

"McCree?" The name was a near-panicked question and command for information as she forced herself back to her feet.

"I'm not–" He cut himself off as the building swayed and groaned again; better prepared for the movement, Angela managed to keep her feet by bracing with her staff. "Y'need t'get out, doc! Pronto!" Angela hoped the three were sprinting down the stairs to safety, that they would get out of the building before it came down on top of them. Quickly she considered her own options.

She could go down the stairwell, but she wasn't sure her wings could stretch in the small space between each side of the stairwell. Even then, there was a building about to come down on her head that may reach her before she made it to the exit. She could try make it up the stairs and hope that there was a roof access – and that it wasn't locked. That was assuming that the stairs would support her mad dash up; she had barely made it up this far, and that was by barely resting her weight on some steps and skipping others. More than once she had nearly taken a tumble, and that had been before the building was actively collapsing.

She could try to brace herself for the fall. There was only the roof above her, but the debris would be minimal compared to what she would land upon – even with the suit to slow her fall. Finally, she could go through a window – assuming the glass was already broken, that is. At this height, it would be impossible for her to break the strengthened glass herself.

Angela darted down the hallway of the apartment and looked at the window to her left. The glass was cracked, not shattered – but hopefully that would be enough. She rushed across the room, raising her staff with both hands. Angela used her momentum to help propel the butt of her staff into the glass, desperately hoping it would break under her blow. The glass spiderwebbed beneath the staff, which she took to be a hopeful sign. She struck again but staggered as the building shook again, sending her hit sliding against the glass ineffectively.

A third blow, precisely on the spot she had hit the first time, pierced the glass fully. It took two more blows to shatter enough of the glass for her to get through. She would be cut, but that was nothing compared to the damage that she would take from a collapsing building. Angela hastily brushed the glass away with one arm, not even feeling it when the glass bit into her skin, before raising one boot to the sill as the building began to give way.

It was a clumsy fall, her wings catching on the edges of the windows as she forced herself through the hole.

For a brief moment, she tumbled through the air in a tailspin, terror flooding her veins. Frantically, she flared the wings and slowed her fall to something survivable. She tried not to look down, to see exactly how high off the ground she was. It was one thing to know that the wings had been tested for heights such as this in a lab setting and quite another to trust they would keep her safe from a deadly fall in real life.

Dust flew up from the ground, blinding and choking her, as it all collapsed in a deafening cacophony of groans and crashes. Still, she held herself aloft, praying there was enough power in the suit – not that she'd used it much today – and that it wouldn't suddenly give out after prolonged use. She had no idea how high in the air she was with the dust all around them, but she knew it was still a terrible, deadly height. Even so, Angela knew that of everyone around the building, she was the safest in this moment.

Her communicator started ringing, buzzing annoyingly at her hip. While she did have a hand free, there was no way she was going to try to fish it out while floating through the air. Whoever it was would have to wait.

"McCree? Are you alright?" Angela asked, trying to keep the tension and stress out of her voice, once the building had mostly settled and everything was relatively quiet. She was who knew how high off the ground, hoping that her three agents had escaped safely. It was impossible to keep from looking at the ground – or trying, anyway, considering the dust in the air – to try and gauge how far until she was on the ground again, which only increased her stress.

"Gottverdammt2, McCree, answer me!" Angela demanded after a long moment of silence, trying to suppress the horror that was filling her. If he were dead, that was on her. She had dragged him out here into this ruin to protect him, and instead she had led him to his death. She had allowed him to stay inside the building instead of ordering him outside. Angela hoped he was simply injured, but she knew how dangerous that collapse had been.

There was still no answer as she drifted in the sky, trying to drop straight down to the clearing she knew existed instead of into more ruins.

Her boots touched the ground shortly after, wings aloft and glowing warmly, with nothing but silence on the cowboy's end; that meant he was either incapacitated or dead. If he were dead, she would deal with it as she would deal with all the horrors of this day, and those yet to come: later. Angela had long since perfected the art of suppressing her emotions, pushing them to a future time when she could afford to feel. She wasn't even sure how she would feel; she hadn't even fully processed that he was the reason her agents were hurt and killed in North America, and now she'd gotten him killed. Maybe it was a poetic kind of justice, but it just made her feel guilty – and then she shoved that aside, too.

The dust had mostly settled, but there was a brown haze to everything. She looked around, searching for anyone that had escaped the collapse. She spotted some figures a short distance away and hurried towards them, ignoring the third incoming call on her communicator. Angela knew that was a dereliction of her duty, but she was dealing with an active crisis – in the middle of an active crisis.

"Stanno tutti bene?3" Angela demanded anxiously as she approached, the dust making it impossible to make out their features. All those people she saved from the building, they had to be okay. She forced herself to forget that there were apartments she hadn't searched, to forget that McCree was injured or dead so that meant others were too. There was nothing she could do for the dead, so she shoved everything aside for the living in front of her.

Once she was closer she realized that they were from the building, the injured adults and despondent children; she looked them over, but she didn't see any new wounds that needed attention. After her long, critical examinations – ignoring the looks of shock and awe they cast her way when they thought she wasn't looking – she turned towards the rubble of the building. She saw people already working, digging, to try and save the ones that had been too close when it all came tumbling down. Angela hurried over to do what she could for the injured and lend her hands as necessary.

Angela found Paulo sprawled out in the rubble. She reached out to check for his pulse before pausing, frowning at the blood on her fingertips. A quick glance at both arms showed gashes where the glass had caught her in her frantic escape; there wasn't much she could do for them, but she reached for gauze nonetheless. Practiced fingers wrapped the sterile cloth around her right bicep, before tying it off with the help of her teeth. She gave her left forearm the same treatments before wiping her hands off on her overcoat.

The worst of her arm wounds treated, the doctor reached out and checked his pulse before carefully turning him over. There was blood on his head and the rocks, and his forearm was sitting at the wrong angle. Gently, she lifted his head to inspect the wound, and then used her staff to heal him. Once he was stabilized, she carefully stretched his arm out and splinted it with the wood from the debris. Angela was grateful he was unconscious – the process was not a painless one.

Once he was stabilized, she carefully stretched him out and rose; he would be of no use in his current state, so it was best to leave him as he was – not that she could move him by herself. Then she was moving, searching through the haze for the next injured she could piece back together as she drew closer to the apartment that had fallen apart.

"You're still alive, then." The voice had her stopping, turning. Sitting on a chunk of loose concrete was Jesse McCree. For a moment, all she could do was stare, stark relief that she hadn't gotten him killed coursing through her. His hat was missing, his hands looked bloody, and there was a terrible gash on his head that was still oozing blood, but he was very much alive.

Then she was Dr. Ziegler again, striding forward to put him back together.

"Of course I'm still alive." She grabbed his chin with gentle fingers to turn his head, ignoring his hiss of discomfort, eyeing the wound critically. "Why didn't you answer me? I thought you were dead." She managed to keep her tone conversational, giving away none of the mixture of emotions she had felt while floating in the sky or even moments ago when he had first spoken; she wasn't sure if her relief had shown in that brief moment, but if it hadn't she would keep it to herself. The emotions didn't matter, because there was no place for emotions in this place of death and destruction.

"Didn' mean t'worry ya, doc." He reached out, as if to pat her shoulder reassuringly, but seemed to think better of it and dropped his hand back to his side. Her eyes went back to his head; his wound was bad enough to rate stitches – and he probably had a concussion on top of it. She hefted her staff, angling it so it was pointing at him. McCree cleared his throat. "Pushed one of th' boys thatta way," he waved vaguely in the direction she'd come from, "when everythin' went sideways." Then he was pointing at his ear, nearly knocking into her staff. "The damn thing flew out or somethin', prob'ly when I got hit."

Well, she couldn't blame him for that, now could she? Angela turned the staff on so that it could knit the flesh back together. Minutes later his head was whole again. McCree reached up to touch the space carefully, then more firmly once he realized the wound really was gone.

"That's a pretty nifty trick." He rose, holding his hand out. Angela looked at his hand, then up to his face with one eyebrow cocked in silent question. "You're pretty beat up yourself; gimmie that stick a' yours." Angela frowned and looked down at herself, then sighed. He was right; her body was peppered with gashes that were bleeding sluggishly and dripping onto the rubble around them. She handed the staff over impatiently. Angela knew that bleeding all over her patients wouldn't help matters at all, but she loathed the pause regardless of its necessity.

While she waited, bathed in the gentle glow of her staff, her communicator rang again. With nothing else to do, she fished the annoying object out. Angela glanced at the screen and was unsurprised at the name of the caller.

"Dr. Ziegler." Angela answered, allowing no sign of her stress to color her voice. If McCree hadn't been at her side, she may have greeted him more familiarly – but there were appearances to keep.

"Are you alright?" Gabriel must be the one on duty in the command center, considering how quickly he had responded to the apartment collapse.

"Of course I am." She had answered her communicator, hadn't she? "I apologize for taking so long to answer; things were a little busy here." Angela wasn't sure if this was a normal reaction for her superiors, or if this was Gabriel allowing his emotions to get the better of him. Were any of them called when their positions were compromised or they took a hit in the field, or was this just for her?

"I have confirmed that agents McCree and da Silva are alive; agent da Silva has a broken arm, so he will be coming home shortly. I haven't found agent Waters yet." Angela reported dutifully after a stretch of silence. With the dust in the air, it was nearly impossible to make out the faces of the people scattered throughout the debris before her – but her eyes were still trying to find him, regardless.

"Commander?" Angela asked, barely tripping over the title as her eyes flashed towards McCree briefly. Barely a moment passed before her eyes were back on the hazy figures before her, searching for Waters. There was nothing but pure professionalism in her voice. "Is everything alright?" He hadn't said anything since his first question, which led her to believe this was more about their relationship as Gabriel and Angela than about a Commander checking on the Medical Director.

"Yeah." Gabriel cleared his throat. "Yes. Sorry." She rolled her eyes; it couldn't have been Ana in the command center when the building came down? It might be an unfair wish, but it wasn't like she called to check on him when he was in the field. Angela didn't monitor situations like her superiors did – she was far too busy in the labs for such things – which meant she didn't have such opportunities, so maybe she was being unfair.

That didn't make it any less annoying.

"Of course." Angela acknowledged instead, ignoring the frustration that the call created. This was not the time or place for it, regardless of McCree's presence. "Did you need anything else, Commander?" The warmth of the beam disappeared; Angela glanced down at herself to see whole flesh beneath the slashes in her catsuit. She turned to McCree to accept her staff back with a murmured thanks.

"No, Angela." Gabriel sighed. "Have Waters check in once you've found him." Angela could tell he was trying to save the conversation, to make it less about them, but she wasn't fooled. That didn't mean she would pursue it right now; she had other, more important things to take care of.

"I will." Of course the agent should check in – perhaps she would have remembered to have them call in after everything had calmed down, but perhaps not. While Gabriel had jumped the gun on the check in, she knew that the call would have needed to be made regardless.

"Take care of yourself." Angela wondered if he would ever tire of those words, but she doubted it.

"I will do my best." It was her tried and true response, the only promise she could offer in the precarious situations she found herself in. It wasn't what he wanted to hear, she knew, but they both knew it was all she would offer him. She heard him sigh as they disconnected, her communicator going back to its home at her waist. Angela glanced at the cowboy, who had yet to recover his hat from wherever it had gone.

"Take it easy, will you?" It wasn't quite an order. "And let me know if you spot Waters." Before he could answer her, she strode off into the destruction to search for the injured and her wayward agent. He was hers to protect, and she had given him orders – given all of them orders – that had placed them in harm's way. Until he was found, safe and sound, that small kernel of worry and fear would gnaw at her.

She now had a greater appreciation for the positions her friends held. They certainly had given orders that had gotten agents killed – they had seen too much combat for that to be otherwise. Angela was grateful that she didn't have to shoulder that burden; she carried enough as it was. She just hoped that Bryant Waters wouldn't become her latest addition to her nightmares. Angela knew she could bear it – she bore the deaths of plenty others – but she did not want to.

Fortunately, she didn't have to. McCree, now with his hat, deposited Waters at her side before ducking away into the dusty haze, giving her no time to thank him. If she had been in her office, or in any semblance of privacy, she would have sagged with relief. All three of her agents were accounted for; she hadn't gotten any of them killed. While one had been injured badly enough to take him out of the field, they were still all alive.

Instead, Angela swept her eyes over the agent critically but found nothing wrong. After she was satisfied that he was as healthy as possible, she ordered him to go check on da Silva and check in with Gabriel. Then, she turned to look for the next injury.

1: Mi dispiace, ma potrebbe far male – Italian – I'm sorry, but this might hurt.

2: Gottverdammt – German – God damn it.

3: Stanno tutti bene – Italian – Is everyone alright?

/-\

I think I'm going to keep the once-a-month update schedule, so please keep an eye out for me around this time next month!